CHAPTER VII.

THE CHURCH AND THE RIGHT TO PROPERTY.'

At the very outset of my paper, I wish to say that I have written it on the assumption that there are in this world three equally divine institutions, the family, the state, and the church. I also take it for granted that whatever affects any member of the human race in his relation to one of these institutions affects him in them all. I shall, therefore, use most of the time allotted to me in trying to explain how the right to property originates, and what is involved in that right, leaving its various applications for the most part to your own good judgment.

The moment we begin to reflect upon the matter, we cannot help seeing that the right to property is one of the most sacred rights of man. We cannot imagine a people so degraded as to be entirely devoid of the idea of property, and no community has ever enjoyed prosperity or attained a high degree of culture where the idea was held in slight esteem. Indeed, we may justly measure the progress of a people in civilization and true worth by the clearness with which they apprehend this idea and the completeness with which they apply it to the ownership and use of every commodity that ministers to human needs.

But, sacred as this right is, we greatly err, in my

1 Address delivered before the N. Y. State Assoc. of Congregational Churches, May, 1907.

opinion, if we suppose that the ground of the right to property is first possession. No man gains a just title to a thing because he came upon it before some one else. If a person to-day should discover a new island in the Pacific he would not for that reason have a right to undisputed possession. Suppose a band of shipwrecked sailors should be cast upon its shores. He could not justly claim that the fruits and springs and other means of subsistence he found there were exclusively his. The new world was not the property of Columbus because he discovered it, nor did it belong exclusively to the scattered bands of savages that occasionally roamed over its surface. Possession and use of a thing can never be an ultimate ground of ownership. Something else must come in to determine whether or not that possession be just.

We should equally err in maintaining that the right to property is founded upon a decree of the government. "Property and laws," says Bentham, "were born together, and will die together. Before law there was no property; take away the law and all property ceases." The natural consequence of this doctrine is that what the statute could make it could at any time unmake. It necessitates the view that there is no right to property back of the decrees of government. If this were true, justice would have no place in determining the possession and use of property. All would be settled by an arbitrary fiat. The governors might at any time decree that all property should belong to themselves alone, and no voice could justly be raised to call the act in question.

Property may rightly be defined as the fruit of human labor. If there were no men in the world, there would be no property. Man alone is the creator of all prop

erty. By his labor he imparts an interchangeable value to things, and this is the beginning of his progress. Man is capable of civilization because he can produce property. Other animals are swifter in the chase, better protected from the cold, and better armed for strife. But they cannot produce property, and therefore cannot advance beyond a certain fixed limit. They can be property, but not the owners and controllers of property. Man, however, because he is active, intelligent, and free,-because he is a person,-can so impress his personality on the objects of nature about him by his labor as to acquire a just title to property. In a highly civilized community there is scarcely a clod of earth or a leaf that does not bear that impress.

Thus we see that the maxim "To the doer belongs his deed" is as true of property as of morals. A man's natural right to anything comes from the labor he has expended upon it, and is determined by the extent of that labor. Whatever laws the civil power may make concerning the possession and use of property, it can never justly ignore this right and treat it as though it did not exist, any more than it can justly ignore any other natural right.

But a matter of supreme importance, in my opinion, to the proper treatment of the subject of property is the fact that a natural right is not of necessity an ultimate right. The natural right to property, like the natural right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," is never an absolute right. These rights, one and all, may justly be sacrificed in case the needs of the community require it. If a man's life and liberty are at the disposal of the body-politic, how much more is his property?

The true state is an organism, and individuals are

the members of that organism. The well-being of the organism as a whole is the thing of greatest moment, and should be the point of view from which to treat the various parts. In the normal condition of affairs the lungs and heart are best developed by developing the whole body. Every human being finds the true sphere for the exercise of his natural rights in his connection with his fellows in their corporate capacity as a state.

The natural right to property, therefore, is ultimately resolvable into a state right. The people, as an organic brotherhood, are to decide what disposition is to be made of all property. While the good of the individual and the preservation of his right to the products of his labors are of great importance, the welfare of the brotherhood as a whole is of far more importance, and should be the point of view from which the laws controlling the possession and use of property are finally determined.

The laws of property that the state enacts will seldom need to set aside the natural right to property, but whatever they may be, they should never fail to be founded upon and to accord with the following:

1. The supreme ownership of all the natural sources of property is with the body-politic. The land, the water, and the air and all that they contain are the common possession of the race. They are under the supreme control of the whole people in their organic capacity as a state. Inasmuch as the support of every man is derived from the soil, the very existence of the state would be imperilled if the supreme ownership of the soil were not vested in the state itself. That the community, and not the individuals of the community, originally owned the land is one of the best attested facts of history.

Indeed, no state has ever given up that ownership. It has only allowed individuals under certain conditions and limitations to possess and use its territory. If a state should unconditionally give up its control, it would thereby cease to be a state. Its sovereignty would be gone. It would lose the very thing that makes it a state, and instead of one state, as many states as there were individuals would suddenly spring into being. If a state at any time adopts the system of individual control of its territory, the titles to the land are derived from the state, and each citizen holds his land ever subject to the control of the state. Whenever the land of the community gets into the hands of the few to the exclusion and injury of the many, or whenever the good of the state for any reason requires it, these titles may justly be revoked and individual control abolished. The state is constantly doing it in the exercise of the Right of Eminent Domain, and never was doing it to such an extent as at present. We have every reason to expect that as the needs of intercommunication increase, and the people become better acquainted with the many injurious effects of the present system, individual ownership will be much further limited. It is vain to argue, it seems to me, that any system of land tenure is of necessity the best system. The state should change its system with the needs of the people and keep it as nearly as possible in harmony with those needs.

2. The state has the ultimate control of and responsibility for the methods of acquiring property. If the sources of property are under the supreme control of the state, it is easy to see that all property derived from those sources should be under its control also. No individual can justly take any of the materials of wealth without the consent of the state and by his labor make